To lose weight you need to avoid salt and salty food. Eat low sodium food instead. Potassium-rich food and drink will also help because potassium displaces sodium from the body.
If you find it hard to cut down on salt, do it gradually. Your taste will gradually change. Instead of salt, to add flavour to your food: Try using herbs, fresh or dried, such as basil, chives, lemon grass, rosemary, thyme, marjoram or coriander, Spices such as pepper, chilli, ginger, or cinnamon, Balsamic vinegar or lemon juice, Zest from citrus fruits.
If you usually use stock cubes or oxo cubes when you are making soup or stew or a casserole, remember these contain a lot of salt. - Why not try using a small glass of wine to add flavour instead of using the high salt cubes?
If you feel you must use salt in cooking or to sprinkle on your food, you could try using LoSalt or Solo Low Sodium Sea Salt. - These mineral salts contain only about a third of the sodium present in ordinary salt and taste very similar to salt. This is still a high proportion of sodium, so use as little as you can manage and try gradually to reduce the amount you use.
In the USA there are other mineral salts that you can buy. One is called AlsoSalt and it contains no sodium at all so it is a good salt substitute for people needing to reduce sodium, but it still should be used in moderation. Another is called Nu-Salt and it also contains no sodium at all.
All of these salt substitutes have websites where you can read about them in greater detail. You should not use any of these salt substitutes if you have been told to minimise your potassium intake.
These mineral salts should be avoided by people who take certain medications, such as ACE inhibitors, which are used to lower blood pressure. And if you have kidney failure, you should not use a mineral salt without medical advice. But if you have kidney failure, you should already have been advised about restricting salt intake.
If you use convenience foods or eat ready meals, read the labels to find the lowest sodium/salt content. Choose canned vegetables marked 'no added salt' and products such as tuna canned in water, rather than in brine or oil.
See the lists of low and high sodium foods below.
Examples of High Sodium Foods and Drinks (Avoid or cut down on these if you want to lose weight)
Remember - so-called 'slimming' foods are often high in salt! - You will not lose weight by eating foods high in salt, however low in fat they are!
Most sodium we eat is from salt (sodium chloride), but sodium is also present in MSG (monosodium glutamate), in baking powder, in bicarbonate of soda (aka sodium bicarbonate or baking soda) and in a few other compounds which are sometimes added to food or to drinks.
In chemical formulae, the symbol for sodium is Na and the formula for common salt is NaCl.
To convert sodium content to salt content, multiply the sodium by 2.5
On labels, more than 0.5g of sodium (1.25g salt) per 100g is high, less than 0.2g sodium (0.5g salt) is low.
A cookery book I can recommend is The Low-Salt Cookbook by Michelle Berriedale-Johnson. It has large pages and lovely illustrations, which really encourage you to try the recipe. Another very good book - a small book, no pictures - is "Cooking Without a Grain of Salt" by Elma W. Bagg et al.
In general, if you are overweight, then to lose weight you need to be eating and drinking food that is as natural as possible - cooking fresh meat and fish, drinking plain water and fruit juices, rather than choosing highly processed food containing high salt levels.
It is also best to avoid Diet Cokes and other diet drinks. Calorie reduction does not reduce obesity, and the chemicals these diet drinks contain are often of dubious safety. - For example, there is a lot of evidence that aspartame is not good for you.
If you are overweight or obese, and you follow the suggestions on this website, you will DEFINITELY lose weight, and you will lose it speedily and safely.
There is no need to overdo anything. - Some websites advise drinking large quantities of water. This is not a good idea. Water is very good for you but too much water is not good for you. The famous actor, Anthony Andrews, drank several litres of water during a performance of "My Fair Lady" in 2003 and had to be rushed to hospital.